Relief operations on Sunday were badly hit by third consecutive day of rains at most places in Uttarakhand, including Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkhashi districts, with choppers carrying relief material not flying due to low visibility.
Talking to The Pioneer, Rudraprayag DM Dilip Jawalkar said that a special team, comprising doctors, Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) commandos of the Uttarakhand police, volunteers, jawans and 16 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, reached the valley four days ago when the weather improved, cremated eight bodies on Sunday.
“Although we could not drop ration to them, we decided to send ration via the Chaumasi route, which is around 18 kilometres long trekking route to Kedarnath. Meanwhile, we are in touch with them through satellite phone and radio set,” he said.
Chopper operations in Kedar Valley in Rudraprayag district remain badly affected due to bad weather, delaying distribution of relief material in affected villages on the 21th day of the tragedy. “We have also requested Air force to send a chopper which can fly in bad weather as well. Hoping that we would get such chopper shortly so that we would be able to disburse ration even in bad weather,” DM Jawalkar added.
To cope up with the prevailing situation, especially people’s allegation that NGOs are providing ration to the affected people, the district administration has issued a circular to all the NGOs that before leaving along with ration to their destination “you must intimate to the district administration so that we would focus on other areas”. He further said that Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar had physically visited to the Gori village, but the situation was different from what media had reported.
The consistent showers made the administration issue an alert and advise people inhabiting banks of the Alaknanda to move to safer places. Transportation of relief by air being the only option, the emphasis is now on repairing breached roads in affected areas so that the process could be expedited, officials said.
In view of the Met department warning of heavy rains in the next 24 hours in parts of the State, especially Nainital, Pithoragarh and Almora districts of Kumaon region, the administration is fully alert to deal with any emergency. State disaster management minister Yashpal Arya, who visited Pithoragarh, directed officials to work on a war footing for relief and rehabilitation of affected people in the district.